Serve God over the past – Heaven Letter #3486
It is essential that you let go of your past mistakes. No matter how much you regret, no matter how careless a mistake, or how deliberate, you have to let go of it. Otherwise, you lasso yourself to the past and tie yourself there. This does no good to you or any man. Flagellating yourself is non-productive. It embeds the error. Tell the error, “Begone.”
If you must be punished with the realization of the error of your deed or non-deed, you have already been punished enough. Do not keep yourself in the dunce’s chair. There is no point to it. You are someone who learned something. The person who made the error and the person who regrets it are not the same person now. Regret your mistake once, and then be done.
You have to let go of the past. You have to free yourself from it. For My sake, let go of the past, and its errors.
Is it not true that heretofore you have been relentless with yourself? Now, I beg of you, let the guilt go. I exonerate you. You are all atoned for. You will not make that mistake again. Is that not good enough?
Why whip the hand, beat the chest, embed a knife in your heart again and again, to what avail?
Every time you imprint an error in your heart, you make it deeper. You make a rotogravure of it. Better to erase it. Do you see the humaneness and practicality of what I am saying? Do not keep error to you. Do not sustain it. Do not feed it over and over again. Release it.
You make no excuses, but you have to let error go. Congratulate yourself for being further along than you once were. Can you not be glad for progress made?
I congratulate you. I congratulate you for having greater vision now. I congratulate you that you are done making that error. You will not step in the same puddle again. Go ahead now, and buy yourself some new shiny shoes. Reward yourself.
You have graduated from an error. Once you were ignorant, and now you are less ignorant. Now you are wiser.
In the world, you do not have to be perfect. You are here on Earth learning how to live divinely in a human world. This is not always easy, but, dear ones, do not make it hard for yourself. There is no percentage in it, not for you, not for anyone.
When you have reached a higher rung in the ladder, you have reached it. Climb up, not down. Think of the greater good and not your penitence.
How does your sitting in a corner, chewing your nails, lashing your back, feeling regret and pain – how does that serve the world? It does not. It pains the world. Why not bless the world? Say:
“I made a mistake. I’m sorry, deeply sorry. Now I erase my mistake from the face of the Earth. I would not burden the world any longer with my regrets. I cast off this burden, from myself and from the world. I have vanquished the dragon. This dragon’s term is over. And now I shall go forward on Earth and slay all the dragons of my past and leave a clean playing field for myself and for others forevermore.
“Once I was a scalawag. Now I am further along. I do not keep the dragons of my past in a cage where I can see them. I am not a taxidermist. I live life, and I serve God, not my past. This is good enough.”
Beyond the peak experience – Leonard Jacobson
Question: I once woke up in the middle of the night and understood all. I was all. I knew like I have never known before or since, that everyone in my life was an aspect of me. There was only I. My mind was totally quiet and yet I knew. It lasted but a couple of hours. How can I be in this state always? Is this what being present is or enlightened? Does this happen when the mind is totally quiet for a long period of time?
Another time in the middle of the afternoon after meditating, I felt a joy that was not so intense and for no reason at all! It was bigger than love. I couldn’t help but smile. It too, passed a couple of hours later. Was this being present? I love your teachings. They speak to my heart and quiet my mind. I would like to permanently live in this state of joy. I never felt like that even when I was most in love. It was free and for no reason.
Leonard’s Answer: The experiences you describe are awakening experiences. They are peak experiences. You awakened into the truth of life, and the truth of who you are. It is the enlightened or awakened state of consciousness. It is a blessing beyond imagining. It is what is revealed at the deepest levels of Presence when your mind is silent and you are fully present and available to what is here now. It is transcendent of your mind and ego. And it is natural that joy would arise out of the silence. But the moment you ask how to be in this state always, you are taking yourself into the future. You are bringing the mind and ego back into play, which will disconnect you from the very experience you are trying to hold onto. From the perspective of one who is awake, there is no always. There is only now. To remain fully present and awake, we have to release our involvement in the past, including peak experiences, and be available to what is present now, even if it is ordinary.
I usually tell people who have had experiences similar to yours to regard it as a blessing to be grateful for. It is as if God had said to you, “I am going to give you a taste of the truth of life. I am going to give you a taste of the truth of who you are. I am going to give you a taste of the Eternal. It will last several hours, and then it will go away, because I then want you to do the work. I want you to bring consciousness to all the ways you are pulled out of Presence and truth. I want you to discover how to function in the world of time, and yet remain fundamentally present. I want you to become a Master of your mind and ego. Otherwise you are not truly free.”
Being present is always instant. You cannot be present a moment from now. Arising in Mastery of your mind and ego is a process that occurs over time. It is a process of integration of the awakened state. I reveal how this is accomplished in my latest book, Journey into Now. It involves coming into right relationship with every aspect of yourself, including your ego. It involves transcending judgment. It involves releasing emotions repressed within you from the past. It involves bringing the human dimension of you that participates in the world of time into alignment with the Godly or Eternal dimension of you, which is your true nature. I describe it in my book as a two step dance of awakening.
~Leonard Jacobson
Floating or swimming against the tide? – Jennifer Hoffman
It seems like the world is falling apart right now. So many different things are happening that are eroding our beliefs in humanity. As we learn more about what goes on in the world, politics, economics and with people in general, it can be hard to not spend the day being angry, depressed and sad. How could things be so wrong and will we ever feel safe and secure again? Were we ever safe and secure or were we just living an illusion that we are now awakening from? Have we all been floating in a sea of ignorance and how can we change direction?
Many years ago I was on vacation at the beach with my family and got into a small rubber life raft with some other kids. Because there were so many of us we didn’t have room for the oars so we left them at the beach. We were laughing and talking, not realizing that the current was taking us out to sea. When we saw the buoys we knew that we were in trouble. The lifeguards had to come in their boat and bring us back to shore. Even if we had the oars, going against the current would have been difficult. What we should have done is had someone stand in the water and hold the boat-but everyone wanted to be in the boat, where the fun was. No one wanted to hold the boat so it did not float out to sea with the tide.
As we go through our lives focused on our material existence we forget about manifestation and creating the world. Instead, we let the world create itself and it does, aligning itself with the most dominant energies and everyone flows along with whatever is created. If those energies are loving and compassionate the world reflects that. If they are greedy, selfish, manipulative and controlling, that is what we see in the world. We are aware of the problem when we become uncomfortable. How do we change it?
We can be angry with the world but that will only add to the energies that have created the situation. Instead we can focus our energies on what we want to create, to add a spark of light to the currents of darkness that everyone has been mindlessly floating in. To move forward we begin by holding our own boat so it does not float with the tide. That’s a lonely place to be as we are watching everyone else floating by us. But then we create enough momentum so we are supported in our efforts. How much of your time and energy do you spend being angry with the world? What can you do to go against whatever current is taking you in its direction and start going against the tide?
Linear thinking – Shang Lee
Linear thinking, a method to think logically from A to B to C. We have used it often enough. It’s taught in schools when you are forced to memorise what comes after the letter ‘P’. Remember the multiplication tables? They start from 1 x 1 = 1, 1 X 2 = 2, 1 x 3 = 3 etc… And when you grew older, it’s memorising chronological events, i.e. the dreaded history lesson. Want more examples? Your name on the register list is listed from A to Z. Your exam report is handed out by some order, alphabetical or worse, by ranking! You queue up linearly for your food in the canteen. And when we are asked to think outside the box, no wonder we have so much trouble doing it. We are conditioned throughout our lives to think in a straight line! Nevermind imagining a 3-dimensional box, and then thinking outside of it. Our brains are wired into a 2-dimensional state!
I use a to-do list so that I can tick off one task after the other, linearly. I may also list things in order of priority, so that I can accomplish those task that seems most urgent, first. In a large hierarchical orgainisation, information is passed from one to the other linearly through the organisation’s ranking system. For example, in an office environment, if you’re a fresh graduate recently employed into the company, your report will be read by your manager first, and then by his manager, and then by her manager etc.. until you reach the top of the pyramid where the board of directors will read it. And if the directors don’t like the report, the information (or their wrath!) will be passed down the same line. This way of passing information is true for a lot of the organisations out there. Think of religion, politics, military, school, even your run of the mill tai ji class! The senior students will get more “secrets” passed down to them than the more junior ones. The common excuse? The person is not ready yet, i.e. you haven’t proven yourself to be worthy of more information.
What’s so bad about thinking in 2D? Everyone does it! The system works. It has been working for a very long time. It provides us with a structure to make sure everything is running in an orderly manner. The industrial age of specialisation, courtesy of Henry Ford has given us a production system that works linearly. Every part of the production line in the car assembly system depends on the previous part, i.e. you make the shell first before putting on doors and tyres. This mode of thinking is pervasive enough to be the structure of organising humans. But why do I feel something is not right? Something in my mind is gnawing this idea away. Something in my mind is resisting it, and not just resisting. Something in me is fighting it, looking to break free. To break free from what? Isn’t this what we are supposed to do? To think linearly?
I have come to realise that this is what we have been trained to do from young. But this is not actually how our mind works. It takes real effort to be able to think through logically from A to B to C. You’re forcing yourself into a mode of thinking that computers use. Sooner or later, computers will be doing that thinking for you and your mode of thinking will become obsolete! You were trained to think how a machine would think, but you are not given the opportunity to allow your own mode of thinking to flourish!
Our sub-conscious mind can assimilate a lot more information than our consicous mind can. We can recognise someone instantly without going through the following mode of thought:
distance between eyes is 2 cm
highest point of nose is 2 cm
colour of eyes is brown
colour of hair is red
length of hair is 30cm on average
ratio of distance between nose and forehead, and noes and chin is 1:1
etc…
Instead, if we met someone we’ve seen before, we’ll just say “hey, I like your new hairstyle!” or “nice make up you’ve got on. it suits you.” Can you possibly imagine the amount of information required to actually make those statements? You have to know what the previous haircut was. You have to know the length and shape of the previous haircut. You have to know how long haven’t you seen that person. You have to take into account the change in hairstyle to recognise the face. You have to know what age can do to a person to still recognise the face. We tap into the large reserve of our sub-conscious mind to make a seemingly trivial statement. And yet we hardly use them in our consicious decisions?
So I urge you as much as I urge myself, to let go of linear thinking, even some of the times. Just let your sub-conscious do the job. Some people call it gut-feeling. Others call it intuition. Whatever you call it, you know it when you use it. See if it changes the way you do things. Something on your top priority list may not be that urgent after all, your sub-conscious mind knows it, but you’ll need to let it tell you. Allow it to surface once in a while. Let it come out to play a little. You might be surprised with the answers it can bring you. You can even try it now, as this article suggest, as there’s no better time than now.
So, what are you waiting for? Why think outside the box when there isn’t even a box!
How can you change from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset? Carol S Dweck
Step1. Learn to hear your fixed mindset “voice.”
As you approach a challenge, that voice might say to you “Are you sure you can do it? Maybe you don’t have the talent.” “What if you fail—you’ll be a failure” “People will laugh at you for thinking you had talent.” “If you don’t try, you can protect yourself and keep your dignity.”
As you hit a setback, the voice might say, “This would have been a snap if you really had talent.” “You see, I told you it was a risk. Now you’ve gone and shown the world how limited you are.” “ It’s not too late to back out, make excuses, and try to regain your dignity.”
As you face criticism, you might hear yourself say, “It’s not my fault. It was something or someone else’s fault.” You might feel yourself getting angry at the person who is giving you feedback. “Who do they think they are? I’ll put them in their place.” The other person might be giving you specific, constructive feedback, but you might be hearing them say “I’m really disappointed in you. I thought you were capable but now I see you’re not.”
Step 2. Recognize that you have a choice.
How you interpret challenges, setbacks, and criticism is your choice. You can interpret them in a fixed mindset as signs that your fixed talents or abilities are lacking. Or you can interpret them in a growth mindset as signs that you need to ramp up your strategies and effort, stretch yourself, and expand your abilities. It’s up to you.
So as you face challenges, setbacks, and criticism, listen to the fixed mindset voice and…
Step 3. Talk back to it with a growth mindset voice.
As you approach a challenge:
THE FIXED-MINDSET says “Are you sure you can do it? Maybe you don’t have the talent.”
THE GROWTH-MINDSET answers, “I’m not sure I can do it now, but I think I can learn to with time and effort.”
FIXED MINDSET: “What if you fail—you’ll be a failure”
GROWTH MINDSET: “Most successful people had failures along the way.”
FIXED MINDSET: “If you don’t try, you can protect yourself and keep your dignity.”
GROWTH MINDSET: “If I don’t try, I automatically fail. Where’s the dignity in that?”
As you hit a setback:
FIXED MINDSET: “This would have been a snap if you really had talent.”
GROWTH MINDSET: “That is so wrong. Basketball wasn’t easy for Michael Jordan and science wasn’t easy for Thomas Edison. They had a passion and put in tons of effort.
As you face criticism:
FIXED MINDSET: “It’s not my fault. It was something or someone else’s fault.”
GROWTH MINDSET: “If I don’t take responsibility, I can’t fix it. Let me listen—however painful it is– and learn whatever I can.”
Then…
Step 4. Take the growth mindset action.
Over time, which voice you heed becomes pretty much your choice. Whether you
* take on the challenge wholeheartedly,
* learn from your setbacks and try again
* hear the criticism and act on it is now in your hands.
Practice hearing both voices, and practice acting on the growth mindset. See how you can make it work for you.
http://mindsetonline.com/changeyourmindset/firststeps/index.html
